This project has been successfully funded with $14,014 (100%)

On October 2012, Yadan Drajy, one of the pioneering Syrian activists, came to France after a hard journey crossing the Jordanian-Syrian borders on foot.

Yadan has left Syria with one thing in his hands, a hard disk, full of his memories, dreams and nightmares: since day one, and until the time he fled the country in September 2012, he has been filming the Syrian revolution, with four of his friends.

Our story is about the destiny of five Syrian friends who held their cellphones and video cameras to document what they were witnessing in the city of Daraa, the birthplace of the Syrian revolution.

On Screen Off Record is an inside story of a revolution though the eyes of five citizen journalists. It’s a journey in between narratives: on
one side the regime’s propaganda and on the other world mainstream media
agendas. In
between the two, the narrative of Syria’s new generation of “citizen
journalists”.

The footage is there, the team of film makers, musicians, researchers, activists and archivists is in place, and some funding has been secured. But in order to advance in the development of the documentary film, more support is needed.

What We Need

In the short term, we need to gather enough funds to map the existing archives and start working on building a narrative of the Syrian revolution from the citizen journalism footage we've got. This will be later confronted to media reports by mainstream and Arab media outlets to show how Syria's citizen reporters got trapped between the regime's propaganda and the agendas of international media outlets.

The Impact

It is important to hear the story of the people who allowed us to see what happened in Syria through their eyes. It is important that these people are given faces and voices. Along with thousands of other Syrians baring witness, but whose voices might not have such an opportunity to be heard, these images will counter balance other main stream media representations of the conflict.

We also want to depict the relationship between these five citizen journalists, their actual lives and experiences and confront that to the way they were pictured by the Syria and Arab media. This will enable us to understand how a better knowledge of media literacy skills, and of the principles of propaganda and misinformation can foster social change in the Arab world. If we understand better the effect of the media on the way view the world, we will be better and more active users of this media.

As Syria seems trapped in a bloody civil war, a better understanding of the relation between mainstream media, new media and social change could empower citizens to foster political change, and we are positive On Screen Off Record works into that direction.

Other Ways You Can Help

We are also looking for volunteer translators to help us adapt the footage, and we're looking to hire a part-time administrative assistant. If you happen to be around Paris, and are excited about joining a big team of volunteers, working on a great project, please connect with us!

Rami Farah is a Syrian director and performer. He pursued studies in Performance Arts at the Higher Institute of Drama and Arts in Damascus, and in documentary film making at the Arab Film Festival in Jordan.
In 2001, he directed…